Dragons in the Garden
by ThereBeDragons17
Summary: The Royal Families of Gondor spend a night in the garden, and their childrens' schemes don't go as planned. In fact, they go better.


Dinner was over, and King Elessar of Gondor was walking slowly around the perimeter of his private gardens with Lord Faramir, Steward of Gondor. The two men were talking business. It was the tail end of summer, and the leaves on the trees in the garden were just starting to take on touches of gold a little prematurely. Mostly, however, the two men were catching up with each other after Faramir's long trip to Rohan, and enjoying each other's company as friends and on not such a professional basis.

There wasn't much to talk about, business wise. Gondor was thriving under the many-year-long reign of Elessar. There were a few minor problems that might evolve into real complications, but until they did there was little or nothing Elessar or Faramir could do about them, which didn't make for good conversation. The walked slowly around the white marble cloisters which circled the garden, jesting and laughing but with a hint of seriousness.

The two men stood at the east side of the garden, where they could see the setting sun. Faramir inquired about Elessar's family, and point in which the Steward knew Elessar took pride.

"They're wonderful," Elessar beamed. "Eldarion is nearly eight but as capable as a ten year old. Aralia is six, and she already has a passion for music. She and Eldarion stick to each other like glue, he's very protective of all of his sisters."

"Like a good older brother should be," Faramir noted.

Elessar nodded. "Gilraen is just over three years of age. She's very sweet but very stubborn, and I think that she feels a bit left out by Eldarion and Aralia."

"Hopefully when Elwen is old enough she can play with her." Faramir mused.

"Elwen is only a baby," Elessar reminded his friend. "Barely one year old."

"What of Lady Arwen?" Faramir asked. "How is she with two young children?"

"Oh, they're all little, Faramir." Aragorn laughed. "Or they are to me, at least. Arwen…"

"…Is fine." Said the Lady's voice as she approached behind the two men, carrying her youngest daughter, Elwen. Eowyn was beside her, smiling. "There have been many sleepless nights, but we're both fine."

Elessar bent forward and kissed Arwen softly over Elwen. "Where are the others?"

Taking her husband to mean their three other children, Arwen replied, "I do not know. No doubt in trouble somewhere."

Elessar grunted. "I'm going to have to clean up after them again, aren't I?"

Faramir's laugh almost covered the sound of a door banging open and the sound of something being rolled across marble. The four adults turned their heads toward the sound. They could see an open door over the top of a hedge, but no one standing in the frame. The sound of something rolling continued, until with a cry, a wind barrel bumped down the three steps and into the garden.

"No!" cried a child's voice. "Stop it!"

Arwen and Elessar's two oldest children pounded around the tall hedge. Eldarion was slightly ahead of Aralia, running to catch the barrel before it crushed some of the flowers his Naneth and Ada loved. Close behind them was their good friend and Faramir and Eowyn's son, Elboron.

The children failed to catch the barrel in time to stop it rolling over a patch of red roses, flattening them. The three drew up short of the rose patch and Gilraen, the third oldest child of Elessar, toddled up behind them.

"Go get it!" Aralia demanded of no one in particular. She looked almost like a miniature Arwen, with long black hair and a Elf-like face, but with her father's grey eyes, if not as piercing as the King's. Her dress was crumpled and her hair slightly wild, but seemed more dismayed at the barrel.

"I'm not going through the thorns!" Elboron snapped. "They hurt!" Elboron was just between Aralia and Eldarion in age, with rugged blond hair and brown eyes. His tunic was a faded blue with brown embroidery, belted at the waist with a strip of leather. He matched Eldarion in personality almost exactly. "I say that Dari gets it!"

"What? No!" Eldarion cried. Elessar's only son had his father's black hair and Arwen's warm eyes. His tunic was green and grey, with a gold hem and a simple belt. He was just as mischievous and inventive as Elboron, which made the two of them a hazardous couple.

"It was your idea to get the barrels!" Elboron cried. The four children seemed oblivious to the fact that their parents were standing twenty feet behind them, they were so concentrated on the barrel.

"You helped me roll them up from the cellar!" Eldarion protested.

"The roses are ruined!" moaned Aralia, trying to plump them into their original shape without pricking herself.

"Ada! Naneth!" Shrieked little Gilraen, running unevenly on her little legs toward her parents. The toddler climbed the steps and threw herself into her father's waiting arms. She giggled and pounded Elessar's chest with a tiny fist. "Barrels! Castle!"

Elboron, Eldarion, and Aralia whirled around in horror. To make matters as bad as possible, not only had they been caught stealing barrels from the cellar, but they had crushed their Naneth's roses, and had their whole conversation not only in front of the King and Queen of Gondor and their parents, but in front of Elboron's parents as well.

"Naneth!" wailed Aralia. "We didn't mean to crush your roses, I mean it!" For a girl only five and a half years old, Aralia was much more mature than she seemed in some cases, and in some cases not. She fled to her mother and wrapped her arms around Arwen's legs to show that she was sorry.

"I know you didn't," Arwen comforted her. "But you'll have to explain it to the gardener."

Aralia nodded, not catching the subtle humor in her mother's voice, and pressed herself against Arwen's lavender dress. She knew how much her mother loved the roses. Arwen shot a look at her husband over her eldest daughter's head.

Eldarion and Elboron approached more sheepishly and hung their heads in front of their fathers. They stood still, waiting for a verdict.

Eowyn frowned at her only son. "What on earth can you be doing with barrels crushing Queen Arwen's roses?"

"We just wanted to play in the garden," Elboron muttered.

"With _barrels?" _Faramir said, sounding like he couldn't even vaguely imagine what his son could be doing rolling a barrel through the castle. And he couldn't.

"Castle!" Gilraen laughed, throwing her arms around her father's neck. Elessar shifted her in his arms.

"It was Dari's idea!" Elboron cried suddenly, pointing to his friend.

"You helped!" protested Eldarion. Then, to his parents, "Ron picked out all the barrels!"

"Did you bring that barrel all the way up from the cellar all by yourselves?" Elessar asked suddenly, not quite as sternly as Arwen would have hoped. She frowned at him. If this was one of his strange lessons, they always taught the children the right things, but he had an interesting way of going about it.

"Yes," Aralia chimed in. There was an underlying hint of pride in her voice. "I helped them."

The two boys puffed up their chests with pride as the King of Gondor grinned and added, "Well, the three of you are growing up to be very strong indeed! Good job!" he patted Eldarion's head.

The three children grinned back and Arwen nudged her husband with her arm as Eowyn laughed. "Don't encourage their stealing, Estel!"

"Well, they are my barrels, seeing as I am King. And even though I do not mind them rolling the barrel through the palace, I wouldn't object to knowing what they plan to do with said barrels." He looked at his son pointedly.

Eldarion, encouraged by his father's praise, bounced on his toes. He seemed like he was going to say something, then only grinned and ran toward the open door he had come through. "You'll see, Ada!" he called over his shoulder. The prince vanished mostly behind a tall shrub and then peered over it on his tip-toes. "Come one, Ron, Lia!"

Aralia and Elboron abandoned their parents and ran after the older boy. Gilraen made a soft whining sound, and Elessar put her down. As soon as her feet touched the marble, she was off across the garden with uneven steps. She paused by the shrub, bent down, and picked up her doll from where it lay, then ran after her siblings, calling, "Waaaaaaaait!"

The footsteps receded into the lower levels of the palace. Elwen had grown sleepy in Arwen's arms, and the Queen sat down on one of the long marble benches in the garden, rocking the child in her arms. She started singing softly in Elvish to her daughter until her eyes closed. Lord Faramir and King Elessar walked through the trampled roses and pulled out the barrel. It was empty, not too heavy between the two men, but neither one could imagine the three- well, four, but Gilraen's contribution was somewhat doubtful- children rolling the barrel up several flights of stairs. The two men set the barrel on end in the middle of the garden.

Over the next hour, until the sun was almost touching the horizon, the children rolled a total of six more barrels up the stairs. Elessar suspected that some guard had helped the children at some point- all of the guards were more than friendly toward his children and would have protected them with their lives, not to mention carrying a barrel up a flight of stairs. The children put the barrels in a heap in one corner of the garden. The adults all watched, amused, as the children rolled the last barrel up into the garden. Only once more did a barrel crush a flowerbed.

The adults watched with interest as Elboron and Eldarion rolled four barrels and laid them up on end in a slight arc. The barrels were shorter than normal, maybe having held whiskey and not wine. Then Eldarion and Elboron rolled a fifth barrel over, braced themselves, and lifted it up.

The princes couldn't get the barrel to move where they wanted it to go. They tried to stack the barrel on top of the first layer they had created. Twice they fell over in the attempt, once they knocked over three other barrels, and they kept on failing until Eowyn laid a hand on the Steward's should and said sympathetically, "Go help him."

So the King and the Steward, at their son's direction, placed the remaining three barrels on top of the row of four. Then they heaved one of the benches into the curve of the structure and backed away.

They still had no idea what it was until Gilraen ran forward shrieking, "Castle!"

Gilraen clambered onto the stone bench and stood on her toes to see over the wall of barrels. "You cahnt ge me, Dari!"

Aralia climbed up next to her younger sister and from there the four children made ready their game. Gilraen, along with Gilraen's doll, were two princesses taking shelter in a castle. Aralia was the Queen, Eldarion was the knight protecting them, and Elboron was attacking him. The point was for the two boys to wrestle each other until Elboron got past Eldarion, and to carry off Gilraen's doll, which the girl was fine with until he managed to do so. Then she ran after him shrieking until he gave her doll back.

But the children drew infinite joy from their game, and the adults had nearly as much fun watching them. Elboron would call a war cry before he attacked Eldarion, but he often got them wrong, or changed them so that "For Gondor!" was "For the Palace!" and such.

The torches were being lit in anticipation of nighttime when Elboron managed to get past Eldarion and pick up Gilraen herself, and paraded around his parents, until Eowyn made him put down the red-faced girl. Gilraen, at that point, was angry enough to kick Elboron viciously in the shins until her father picked her up. Elessar had a hard time holding his daughter as she squirmed and shrieked in his ear.

Elboron ran back to the castle and Eldarion called, "You absolutely deserved that."

"Shut _up, _Dari!" Elboron snapped.

"What are we going to do now?" Asked Aralia. "We haven't got a princess." No one mentioned the doll, which had been left behind in the 'castle'.

"You can be the princess, Lia." Eldarion said. "And… oh! I know!"

The prince ran back to his father excitedly. "Ada, can I have your cloak?"

Elessar frowned. "You can _borrow _my cloak, but I expect to get it back."

"Yes, of course," Eldarion said impatiently. Elessar unclasped his heavy royal blue cloak and handed it to his son.

Eldarion fastened the cloak around his neck. It was much too long, and he took the sides of the cloak in his hands, then ran to Elboron, moving his arms up and down wildly, yelling, "DRAGON!"

The guards at the door wheeled around, hands at their hips, before seeing the boy. They laughed and turned back around. Elboron ran after his friend, trying to grab the back of the cloak.

"I'll save you, princess!" Elboron laughed. He went up to Faramir and gave his father a pleading look. Faramir sighed and gave Elboron his cloak.

"BETTER DRAGON!" Elboron laughed and ran after Eldarion. Arwen laughed as Eldarion roared and charged Elboron. The second before they collided both boys stopped running.

Elessar and Faramir laughed, and Elboron jumped at Eldarion. They hit their chests against each other, their hands occupied holding the cloaks. Aralia jumped up and down inside the castle and Elwen woke up in Arwen's arms, shrieking with her babyish laughter.

* * *

><p>Until night came in full the children played their game with the dragons and the castle. Then, when the torches were the only source of light, the boys gave the (extremely muddy) cloaks back to their fathers. Faramir, Eowyn, and Elboron took their leave and retired to their home. Arwen ushered Eldarion and Aralia into the <em>real <em>palace while Elessar carried Elwen and led Gilraen by the hand.

The four children had been put in bed and the King and the Queen had returned to their room as well. Elessar lay awake in his bed, looking out the window at the stars. Arwen shifted in her sleep and he put his arm around her.

"Estel?" Arwen murmured softly. "You are not yet asleep?"

"Not quite," Elessar muttered, kissing her forehead lightly.

There was a sudden knock at the door. Elessar raised himself up onto one elbow. "Come in."

The door opened and with a quick flurry of tiny pattering feet and a black shape jumped onto the bed- and, at the same time, Elessar's legs. The King groaned and moved over as the shape crawled across the bed and nestled between him and Arwen.

"Aralia," Arwen muttered sleepily. Her elf eyesight was still a bit better than Elessar's.

"Naneth." The little girl squeaked. "That was fun."

"Very," her mother agreed. "Go back to bed now, little one."

"I'm scared."

Elessar shifted, holding his daughter. "Of what?"

There was silence.

Then, "Are there really dragons in Gondor?"


End file.
